Modern, Multi-Tier Apps using Amazon Web Services

Most applications we use today are multi-tier, yet students primarily learn and build stand-alone, monolithic programs. This tutorial introduces attendees to building modern, multi-tier applications, with the goal that attendees can in turn introduce this topic to their students. The tutorial will use Amazon Web Services (AWS), though the concepts are cloud-neutral. Topics include multi-tier design, data storage, web services, RESTful API design, and serverless computing. Attendees will build a complete, multi-tier app using a variety of AWS services: RDS, S3, Lambda, and API Gateway. These four services are sufficient for building a large variety of interesting, real-world projects. Materials for this tutorial are drawn from the Scalable Software Architecture course taught at Northwestern University, a 10-week class for undergraduates and first-year graduate students; these course materials are freely-available at https://www.joehummel.cs.northwestern.edu/.